2- It's a long one

-2-
“Still I’m the one who’s Stupid”


Being alone and eighteen was a hard thing to do. It sure doesn’t feel like ten years ago, that’s for sure. I was alone on the first day of the rest of my life. Some call it that, while others may simply call it college. I only thought of it as another system of schooling that would help to bring me down. I had no idea what I was doing with my life; let alone what I had wanted to major in. Yet here I was, once again attending an establishment that I delightfully hated. I was attending college for my parents and because society dictated that I needed to attend. If I didn’t graduate college, society implied, I surely wouldn’t succeed at life.

Throngs of students rushed around me. Some carried two, maybe three suitcases at a time in hopes of being the first to their dorm room. All of this racing was done in order to pick out the good side of the room. The entire idea in and of itself was ridiculous. Other students dawdled, hands in their pockets; lost in the crowd of people and seemingly having no cares in the world. I wish that could have been me. I myself fit into neither of these categories, for I didn’t care what side of room I had. At the same time, I had my fair share of worries. The rooms were eight feet by 12 feet and I likened them to more jail cells than dorm rooms. I could not imagine spending more than one hour at a time in this crawlspace of life.

The one overriding fear I had was that my roommate would be a six foot three black man that would be having sex every night. I wasn’t, and am still not, racist. The fact is, I wasn’t exactly raised in what would be called a diverse city, and I wouldn’t really know how to act around an African American. I was pretty certain that just because I had like Puff Daddy, Tupac, and Snoop Dogg would make us fast friends. In fact, I would probably be laughed at for it.

It was the first day of check in and I had assumed that I would be the first in my room. The early part of my day had been spent moving my oldest friend Christa into her dorm room. Her room happened to be on the other side of campus, which was my first disappointment. Christa and I had known each other since the first grade and we were good friends, but not best friends or anything like that. Our parents had pretty much decided that since we were going to school together that I should help her unload all of her crap. I, being the gentleman I am, lugged her stuff up four flights of stairs. By the time were done, it was in the afternoon and I had only thirty minutes to check in. I breezed through the check in at the front desk and dawdled enthusiastically up to my room, with Christa close behind.

Expecting the worse, and certainly hoping for the best, I reached the room and swung open the door. Slightly disappointed, I saw that the room was not empty. The sun shone brightly through the windows; its rays temporarily blinding me. As my pupils squinted to adjust, I saw that the room was already occupied. A guy sat on the bed and he had a girl seated on his lap. She was cradled in his skinny arms. “Man, he works fast,” I had thought to myself. “This may be cooler than I thought.”

The guy, at my best guess, was my age and he had blonde hair. And he wasn’t black. Once again, I am not racist, but I am simply pointing it out to let you know that my fears were did not come true. He was dressed rather sharply. Not in a suit and tie, mind you, but he was dressed in some rather nice casual wear. Probably something from Abercrombie and Fitch, who knows, I’m no fashion expert. All I know is he looked much better than I did in my old jeans and Nike polo shirt. He was not a big man, average size at best. He was not intimidating by any means, yet I stood there full of wrecked nerves that bothered me beyond belief.

Maybe it was because the girl on his lap was a knock out. She was a skinny blonde, weighing maybe a hundred and five pounds. Her hair was long, perhaps shoulder length (the memory of her nearly escapes me) and she had a perfect body. Her breasts were a little on the small side, but who cared. I had rarely seen a girl like this in my small town. I had no idea that they would only become more beautiful after this.

I was nervous and all and wasn’t quite sure what to exactly say. Lucky for me, the new roommate was a bit more outgoing and he started the introductions. “Timmy?” he asked with impalpable certainty.

“Yeah,” I responded shyly. “Pat, right?”

He nodded and wrestled a hand free from clutching his girl. He extended it to find mine. I reached out and groped it. I had learned awhile back how to read handshakes, and his felt sincere. “This is my girlfriend Tory,” he confidently stated.

“Nice to meet you both. This is my friend Christa.” The two girls exchanged a polite hello and smiled. For the first time, it felt weird with Christa standing there as only my friend, not as a girlfriend. Maybe it was because I was in this strange city alone, but I wanted to lean over and grab her hand in mine.

Of course, I didn’t, and the four of us stood in silence before Pat once again started up the conversation. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the right side of the room. The guy that led me up here said that the right side is the best. Since I got here first, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“No problem,” I solemnly replied.

My answer didn’t sound sincere, but in reality, it didn’t bother me. I have a problem of when I’m telling the truth about something, if often comes across as a weak minded lie. The fact is, even it was a problem that he took the right side of the room, I’m the type of guy that wouldn’t have argued anyhow. I’m like that, I guess. What did bother me was the fact that I wasn’t even led up to the room by anyone and it made me wonder if the people at the front desk didn’t care about someone that showed up ten minutes before the close of check-in times. Either way, I moved past it quickly and sat my suitcase on the left side of the room.

I glanced around the room and realized how unbelievably small it was. Christa stood in the doorway, silent as usual. Tory kept smiling at me, and I wondered if she was sizing me up in her mind; quietly judging me. I often thought that about most people. I’m sure it happens; I know that I certainly do it, but I wonder why people stoop to these low levels. I guess society just had in ingrained in their heads to do it, so why shouldn’t my roommate’s eighteen year old girlfriend be any different.

I turned away from her and gave my full attention back to my side of the room. There was one bed, one tiny dresser with three drawers, one desk, and one closet. These were all on one side of the room that seemed like the size of a large casket. The walls were painted white and peeling in many places. The ceiling was very rough and looked as if it was painted with spit wads. I would later find out that the building had asbestos crawling all through it. Which might partially explain my current trouble breathing, but doctors haven’t proven it yet. I finished my quiet judgment of the room and turned to face my roommate.

“I guess I’ll bring my stuff up,” I said with no inflection in my voice.

“We’ll get out of your way. Tory’s room is just downstairs. Come grab me if you need any help or anything. Nice meeting you, Christa.”

I couldn’t believe this guys luck. Not only did his girlfriend come to college with him, he was only separated from her by one measly floor. As my envy continued to grow, I watched as Pat grabbed Tory by the hand and led her from the room. Tory smiled at Christa and Christa once again returned the favor. This Tory girl loved to smile. I could already imagine this being a very exciting year. Christa watched them leave and she then quietly shut the door behind them. Christa whispered to me,

“They are very much in love.”

“How can you tell?” I asked. This should have been my first indication that I couldn’t read women, but it didn’t help.

“Didn’t you see them? They were all over each other. They’ll probably kick you out of the room all of the time, wanting to do it,” Christa said with a chuckle.

“Very funny,” I replied. “Let’s get my stuff.”

Christa mentioned they would have sex a lot and it turned out to be quite the prophecy. I was still a virgin. I had come close to sex once during my senior year of high school. Unfortunately, there was no condom to be found and I went home full of life and nothing to show for it. Here I was, one year later, still a virgin and having to hear about my roommates sex-capades on a daily basis.

By hear, I mean literally hearing Pat and Tory have sex. The first few weeks they would wait for me to leave the room, which I had no problem with. It was soon after these first few weeks, though, that half the time they didn’t bother to wait for me to be gone. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and hear them going at it. The only reason I could tell was the fact that I heard very rhythmic breathing on the other side of the room. That, and the fact I would hear a deep moaning sound coming from Tory. I really doubt that the two of them were doing yoga at three in the morning while lying in bed. It’s just not possible, at least in my opinion.

I never discussed it with them, mainly because I thought it was a private issue and I shouldn’t interrupt them or anything. That and I was the complete opposite of confrontational. They kept on doing the nasty six or seven times a week, by my calculations. I eventually learned that the only way that I could combat it besides talking to them was to put a CD in my Discman and fall asleep listening to that. I’d put songs on repeat, so the thing would play all night and I wouldn’t hear a thing. Besides, I had too much on my mind. The main thing was Christa. Every night, I’d attempt to think of ways to push the limit and move our relationship past the friendship stage. It was always to no avail, as something would always stop me. Most of the times it was my insecurity and cowardice, but the final brick to my head is what occurred at a party the two of us attended towards the end of the first month of school.

Christa and I both had a friend from high school that had attended this college the year before. She was still going there and knew a lot of people. She had decided to invite us to a party that Friday night. It was a party at one of the frat houses and it was a big party for the new pledges. I wasn’t really big on parties at the time, but Christa thought it would be a good idea to go. It’s not like it took much convincing to get me to go, either. I was a teenager with raging hormones and I had wanted to be wherever she was. It was decided that I would drive that night. I figured to be the one drinking less, so I volunteered. She insisted alcohol was not something that she wanted to delve too deep into, but I knew better than that. Christa had been sheltered by very protective parents and I knew that she would want to fully experience the college atmosphere.

I was in my Nissan Sentra outside of her building when she walked through the double glass doors. By looking at her, I could tell that tonight would not be one of those nights I could meet other girls. As she walked in the bright headlights, I couldn’t help but stare. The jeans she wore were very tight and perfectly accentuated her nice ass. The way she walked, wow. Christa’s hips swayed lazily from side to side, at least in my mind they did. The shirt she wore was even hotter. It was a sleeveless button up shirt. Silk, I think. I could see the outline of her bra and that turned me on more than seeing her topless. She had worn her hair down for the evening. The hair reached down past her shoulders and really brought out the features of her smooth face. I tried to get the funny thoughts out of my mind, but all I could think about was taking her back to my room, ripping off her shirt buttons with my teeth, and nailing her. Girls have that power to create funny thoughts. That’s why guys think of sex all of the time. It’s all because of girls like Christa.

The entire drive over all that I could think about was having sex with Christa and how special it would be to get laid by her. We had a conversation on the way to the party, but my responses and intellect consisted of “yeah” and “uh-huh.” Before I knew it, we had pulled up on the street of the party. Cars lined the driveways and the streets. I could tell that this would easily be a big party. We stepped out of my car and joined a group of people who were entering the house. The only thought I remember having was, “this is college?”

Christa slipped her soft, delicate hand into mine and my brain started to race a hundred miles per minute. Christa’s action only lasted a few seconds, carrying over until we walked into the house. She immediately let go and began to scope out the room. The place was packed. From wall to wall, college students squirmed past one another. All carried with them red cups of beer or liquor or both. There must have been thirty to forty people in the living room alone. Music blared and blasted out the sound of any conversations that might have been taking place between people in the room. It was rap music, I believe. It was probably the newest Dr. Dre hit or something similar to that. My mind began to wander and I figured this is exactly what I had missed out in high school. Here I was, at a party with Christa, and I was focusing on times that I might have missed in high school. It was pretty idiotic of me because I didn’t even notice that our friend from high school had approached us.

“Timmy? Timmy!” yelled the sweet voice of the girl. The voice brought me back to reality and I looked her in the eyes.

“Hey Donna,” I screamed to her.

“Pretty cool party, huh?” yelled Donna as the music died off. A few people looked our way, but Donna paid them no attention.

“Oh yeah,” said Christa enthusiastically. “I never imagined college to be like this.”

“Well, grab a beer. The keg’s in the kitchen. We’ll catch up later.” Donna left as quickly as she had arrived and I was once again alone with Christa.

“Let’s split up and meet again in a bit. We can meet more people that way. Okay?”

Being a dumbass, I agreed to the proposition with a hearty nodding of my head. Like I’ve said, I was young and unschooled in the ways of women, so I had no idea what to say to her to convince her to stay. I wanted to desperately be by her side, but then I felt if I did that, I would be like a dog following around his owner. The owner eventually gets tired of the dog constantly at his feet, so the owner kicks the dog. At this point, I didn’t need to be kicked any further down by Christa. We went our separate directions; her heading left and me heading right. In hindsight, I now know that this sent me further away from my goal.

The night dragged on and I met a few people, but my eyes were constantly following Christa. Every time that I broke from conversation with one of the beer drinking cretins or blonde bimbos, my eyes would immediately locate Christa. I would watch as she laughed with a guy or spoke engagingly to a girl. What exactly drew me to her, I don’t think I’ll ever know. Maybe it was her swaying hips. Maybe it was her demure personality. Or her good looks. I guess it was mostly her smile. She could melt guy’s hearts from a mile away with that smile. She would get a guy in her radar and shoot that smile, knowing full well what it could do. Creatures like that weaken men’s knees and deliver the kill with a sweet, sensitive voice. When I stared in her direction, the noise that exploded from the stereo evaporated and silence filled the room. I could faintly hear voices, but none of that mattered. The only thing I could think of was her. I wasn’t obsessed, if that’s what you think. Somewhere during the point of obsession, a line is crossed. I went beyond that line long ago.

At this point in the night, it was getting quite late and I was beginning to feel the sting of the five beers I had drunk. I arose from my spot on the wall and stumbled towards the bathroom. IT took me awhile to find it, mostly because drunken bastards kept running into me and they kept me from finding the toilet. By the time I found the bathroom, the piss was ready to erupt forth. I made it barely in time and I pissed for a good five minutes. In the dark. I’m sure most of it ended up on the floor, but hell, it wasn’t my house. I flushed the toilet and turned on the sink. It’s amazing what once can do drunk while in the dark. I ran my hands under the warm water and slicked back my hair. I thought maybe I could find some drunken freshman girl and steal a kiss. As I reached for the doorknob, I heard Christa’s voice walking down the hall. I remained in the bathroom and listened. The voices were muffled but I could tell that it was Christa and Donna.

“Meet any cute guys tonight,” asked Donna.

“Yeah, a couple of them. Nothing too special, though.”

“College boys are just the same as high school guys. A few are nice; don’t get me wrong, but its always sex, sex, sex. You have to find the right ones. How’s Timmy doing? The two of you seem to be getting pretty close.”

“Timmy,” questioned Christa.

I could tell by the confidence in her voice that she knew exactly what Donna was talking about. My heart raced as I prepared myself to hear her answer. I pressed my ear close to the door, careful not to make a sound. “Timmy’s like a brother to me. He’s great and all, but it would be totally weird to date him.”

And there it was. With two simple sentences, my heart was crushed. It was a huge blow to my groin. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach and I slowly backed away from the door. In retrospect, I knew long before she did that we could never have a relationship. I just never planned on hearing it this way. I was destroyed. And through it all, I’m still the one that’s stupid.

ONE

“Who am I?”

That question surely hasn’t been answered yet.

“Where did it all go wrong?”

That’s the question I ask everywhere I go and no one can seem to tell me the answer. The only answer I get is silence. Absolute, no fucking doubt about it, genuine silence. I look at my life at where it stood three years ago, and everything was perfect. Perfect in the sense that it made me nearly complete. Or so I thought. That was one of my many misplaced ideas I had lost. In retrospect, maybe things were never right in my life. Maybe my utopian paradise was created by society and not by me. From day one I’ve known, I suppose, and yet I fought for it to be right. I’ve just chosen to blatantly ignore all of the signals and live in a crystal idealization of myself.

“What have I become?”

I used to be a man with dreams. I was a man that had goals and lofty aspirations. Now I’m hopeless. I’m a shell of the sensitive man that I once was. I’m a man that sits on the roof of his parents’ house, just as I did twelve years ago. You see, in high school when I was depressed, I would grab my dad’s Eagles tape and pop it into my walkman. I would grab the silver ladder from the garage, lean it up against the side of the house, and make my way to the roof of our one story house. I would find the song Desperado and listen to it over and over again. Don’t ask me why, but that song made me break down and my melancholy would pour out. Life has come full circle and I often find myself in the same exact place. Except now it’s Ben Folds songs that litter my IPod.

I mentioned day one earlier. By that harrowing day, I am referring to the collective whole of my teenage years. One’s life doesn’t REALLY start until then anyways. Up until that point, everything done in life is carefree and fun. As a child, who really cares about anything but running around the playground, watching television, and playing house with the neighbor girl? It’s all fun and games, and then life suddenly changes. One magical morning you wake up with a stiff penis and a sticky substance in your shorts. That’s when life starts. And ends, I guess, with Viagra and all that jazz. The beginning is like winter turning into spring. Then stress enters your life and nothing is ever the same again.

“Is it over?”

That’s the stress talking. Of course it’s over. I’m done trying to impress members of the opposite sex. My life has revolved around girls for far too long and I perhaps based too much stock in what they thought. Well fuck them! They’ve had their chances and now they’ve screwed with my mind once too often. It doesn’t matter anyhow. Bitches. All of them. Nothing matters now. I moved back home to my parents’ house to get away from all of that. To find myself. It’s sure helping, right?

“Am I crying?”

Be a man asshole. You’re 28 years old and living with your parents. You’re not a teenager anymore. I worry a lot, if you can’t tell. I always have. Sometimes I’m so inside my mind it that the entire thing drives me nuts. I have taken a lot of responsibility for myself; much more than a lot of my friends ever did, and yet I’m the one staring at the mountains off in the distance in the afternoons. I sit there, letting the deep, throaty vocals of Tom Waits soothe me over. I try to fight back those tears, but one will always eventually drop down my hair covered cheeks.

My name is Timmy. I’m an alcoholic. Or at least I like to call myself one. If that’s the case, I’m also a drug addict, sex addict, and an esteemed member of gambler’s anonymous. And by gambling, I mean that I buy five dollar scratch tickets at the local gas station on a daily basis. Sometimes, I even buy a whole sheet of them. My liver is probably failing, but I’m sure it has close to a good ten, or fifteen, years left in the healthy cycle. That’s if the smoking and eventual lung cancer don’t catch me first. I have brown hair, blue eyes, and the uncanny ability to drive people away that get close to me. I am six feet tall, and outwardly it appears that I have been chiseled from that of a Greek God. Okay, that’s not true, but I like to think so. Surely everyone has heard this sob story before, so I’ll spare you the minor details.

“Have I lived life to the fullest?”

Who knows?

“Do I deserve any of this?”

That answer is probably not; at least not in my eyes. People have often asked me if I’m afraid of death. I say yes, that I don’t want to die yet. I also tell them that I can’t really dwell on the inevitable. Everyone does at some point. I figure that if some higher power decides that it’s my time to go, then I will politely oblige, just as I’ve done with everything else in my life. I had my opportunities and my chances. I even attempted to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, as the saying goes. I have repented and sought forgiveness for those that I’ve sinned against. The fact is, I don’t even know where my mind is at most of the time. The scary part is that by not knowing the answers, I’m sent deeper and deeper into oblivion. I am a seeker of knowledge and wish to know everything I possibly can before I pass from this place. This place Earth, as it’s called. Well, by most observers anyway.

As I look back now, I can honestly say that so much that I’ve done n my life was done to impress my parents. I yearned for girls, yes, but I was a need for my parents’ constant support and reassurance that drove me nuts. Nothing was ever for me and that turned me into the person that I became after my teenage years. I couldn’t visualize anything for myself. It was always seen through my parents’ eyes. In high school, I didn’t get good grades to necessarily learn. I studied hard in subjects that interested me, but only hard enough to receive a low ‘A’ or high ‘B’ in that course. I might have been the valedictorian with a bit more effort. I wanted to learn, yes, but not the basic rubbish the schools were doling out in the public system. I wanted to read Dante, Aristotle, Plato, and Milton. All of those were subjects that are lost on the majority of today’s MTV fed society. A random teenager can name you the latest Lil Wayne or Taylor Swift song, but they can’t name you one of Shakespeare’s plays. Unless, that is, it’s one that Julia Stiles was in the movie version of. I took four years of Science in high school. For some reason, every single year I had to have the Scientific Method re-taught to me because the book demanded it so. The irony is that I can’t even tell you what it is now, just proving to everyone how much I really cared about Science.

Somehow, though, I managed to get through it. I got through the ups and downs of a middling athletic career in which I lettered in four sports. I got through the awkward stage of wearing glasses and bearing with the pain of girls choosing the guy right next to me at the various school dances. I got through the pain of being alone as I heard my so called friends talking about all the fun things they did without me the previous weekend. Not once did that phone ring at my house. I survived everything. Except for maybe this thing I’m going through here. That part is still to be determined. I’ve done everything for my parents. Everything. I even kept from taking my own life. Just for their sakes.